Christmas

I took piano lessons for many years, starting in early grade school. Although I don’t often sit down to play the piano much these days, I always break out the Christmas carol music books and limp through my favorites. It’s one of my Christmas traditions. In this photo taken on Christmas Day 2004, I was playing carols for my family, who had come to visit for the holiday.

Product/technique notes

I followed sketch 301 from Creative Scrappers and used products mostly from the Crate Paper Bundled Up collection. The cut-apart card is from Simple Stories December Documented, the glittered snowflakes are from K&Co, the label stickers are from Shimelle and Cosmo Cricket, and the ornament die cut is from BasicGrey Evergreen. I chose my supplies based on the Scrap O’Clock mood board below.

The story

These 1967 Christmas morning photos are so sweet. Look at that tinsel-covered tree and the homemade stockings on the back of the front door. And I love the light fixture and television in the background of the right picture.

That delighted little imp about to open her first big present is 13-month-old me.

Product/technique notes

The background patterned paper is from Echo Park’s Merry Christmas collection, and the other patterns are from Heidi Swapp’s Believe collection and American Craft’s Wish List 6×6 paper pad. The embellishments are from Pink Paislee’s Yuletide (the tags) and American Crafts (the Santa clothespin). The gift diecut I used behind the photos is from Silhouette. I wish you could see better in the photo that I brushed Wink of Stella clear glitter pen all over the ribbon top on it. It looks beautiful IRL.

At the start of the Christmas season in 1977, we got it into our heads to paint a holiday scene on our house’s big front window. Mom and Dad helped us get all set up with tempera paints and brushes, and we all brainstormed what the image should be. Once we settled on a snow couple, Phil and I set to work painting together. What a great project for an almost-10- and 11-year-old!

I think it took a couple days to finish because we were painting on all the little panes of glass, but once it was completed we were all thrilled with the results.

We enjoyed this project so much that we painted a different scene each year after that, mostly recreating images from Christmas cards we had received. After our first year, Dad added to our curb appeal by setting up spotlights in the front yard to shine on our artwork.

It was a special Daquila-family Christmas tradition, and I treasure the memory of how excited I felt each year to create the new design.

Product/technique notes

I followed the Scrap Much December sketch below and used papers from the Crate Paper Bundle Up collection. The three bling snowflakes are by The Paper Studio.

I felt like doing a little paper folding on my Christmas cards this year. So I did some searching on Pinterest for origami tutorials and found this one for a Christmas tree design. I used three squares—3 inches, 2.5 inches, and 2 inches—in various patterns and attached them to some American Crafts cards from their North Pole collection. I really like how they pop off the card when you pull them out of the envelope.